ALP 8.5% vs GRN
Incumbent MP
Peter Khalil, since 2016.
- Geography
- Redistribution
- History
- Candidate summary
- Assessment
- 2019 results
- Booth breakdown
- Results maps
Geography
Northern Melbourne. Wills covers most of the City of Moreland. Key suburbs include Brunswick, Moreland, Coburg, Pascoe Vale, Oak Park, Glenroy, Hadfield and Fawkner.
Redistribution
Wills lost part of Brunswick East to the seat of Melbourne, increasing the Labor margin from 8.2% to 8.5%.
History
Wills was created for the 1949 election as part of the expansion of the House of Representatives. Apart from a period in the early 1990s, it has always been held by the Labor Party.
Wills was first won in 1949 by the ALP’s Bill Bryson. He had previously held the seat of Bourke from 1943 to 1946. Bryson served as a member of the ALP until the split of 1955, when he joined the new Labor Party (Anti-Communist), which became the Democratic Labor Party. He lost the seat at the 1955 election.
The seat was won in 1955 by the ALP’s Gordon Bryant. Bryant served as a minister in the Whitlam government from 1972 to 1975, and retired in 1980.
Wills was won in 1980 by former President of the ACTU, Bob Hawke. Hawke was in the rare position of a politician who was already a significant national figure in his own right before entering Parliament, and he was immediately appointed to the Labor frontbench. Hawke failed in an attempt to replace Bill Hayden as Labor leader in 1982, but was successful in another attempt on the very day that Malcolm Fraser called the 1983 election, and he won that election, becoming Prime Minister.
Hawke won re-election at the 1984, 1987 and 1990 elections, but in 1991 he was defeated in a caucus leadership ballot by Paul Keating, and he resigned from Parliament in 1992.
The 1992 Wills by-election was a remarkable campaign, with 22 candidates standing. The seat was won by former footballer Phil Cleary on a hard-left socialist platform. Cleary’s victory was overturned in the High Court due to his status as a public school teacher on unpaid leave, shortly before the 1993 election. He was re-elected at the 1993 election, and held the seat until his defeat in 1996.
Wills was won back for the ALP in 1996 by Kelvin Thomson, a Victorian state MP since 1988. Thomson was appointed to the Federal Labor shadow ministry in 1997, and remained on the frontbench until early 2007. Thomson retained his seat until his retirement in 2016.
Labor’s Peter Khalil won in 2016, and was re-elected in 2019.
Assessment
The Greens would need to do very well to have a chance in this seat, although a change in Liberal preference policy would get the Greens much closer to winning.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Peter Khalil | Labor | 42,355 | 44.1 | +6.2 | 44.3 |
| Adam Pulford | Greens | 25,575 | 26.6 | -4.3 | 26.3 |
| Peter Killin | Liberal | 17,241 | 17.9 | -3.6 | 18.1 |
| Sue Bolton | Victorian Socialists | 4,344 | 4.5 | +4.5 | 4.5 |
| Chris Miles | Animal Justice | 3,596 | 3.7 | +2.1 | 3.8 |
| Manju Venkat | United Australia Party | 2,979 | 3.1 | +3.1 | 3.1 |
| Informal | 4,243 | 4.2 | -2.6 |
2019 two-candidate-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Peter Khalil | Labor | 55,898 | 58.2 | +3.2 | 58.5 |
| Adam Pulford | Greens | 40,192 | 41.8 | -3.2 | 41.5 |
2019 two-party-preferred result
| Candidate | Party | Votes | % | Swing | Redist |
| Peter Khalil | Labor | 72,888 | 75.9 | +4.2 | 75.7 |
| Peter Killin | Liberal | 23,202 | 24.1 | -4.2 | 24.3 |
Booths have been divided into three areas:
- North-East – Coburg, Fawkner and other suburbs.
- North-West – Glenroy, Pascoe Vale and other suburbs.
- South – Brunswick and other suburbs.
Labor won a majority of the two-candidate-preferred vote in the north-east (60.8%) and the north-west (67.4%). The Greens polled 51.9% in the south.
The Liberal Party came third, with a primary vote ranging from 10.3% in the south to 22.4% in the north-west.
| Voter group | LIB prim % | ALP 2CP % | Total votes | % of votes |
| South | 10.3 | 48.1 | 17,167 | 18.4 |
| North-East | 14.9 | 60.8 | 16,736 | 17.9 |
| North-West | 22.4 | 67.4 | 16,392 | 17.6 |
| Pre-poll | 19.9 | 58.9 | 27,500 | 29.4 |
| Other votes | 22.1 | 57.2 | 15,583 | 16.7 |
Election results in Wills at the 2019 federal election
Toggle between two-candidate-preferred votes (Labor vs Greens), two-party-preferred votes and primary votes for Labor, the Greens and the Liberal Party.
im sure they will change. personally i hope they do as i dont like the yarra crossing in melbourne
If Fatima Payman is expelled then the Greens /Socialists can use this against Labor here. It may actually sign off Peter Khalil’s political death certificate.
As long as Samantha Ratnam is the Greens candidate here she won’t win. She gives me Alex Bhatal vibes (former failed Greens candidate for Batman)
She doesn’t come across as a star candidate or inspiring like Mad Max in Griffith and Bates in Brisbane. I would rank her worse than a “Generic Greens candidate”
@Nimalan you may or may not be happy to hear that Richard Marles this morning has indicated on radio that they won’t be expelling Payman for crossing the floor. Of course she’ll probably be disciplined but I expect nothing more than a ‘warning’ from Albanese and co, nothing too dramatic as they know they can’t afford to lose anyone in the Senate as they’re in minority and if they do the repercussions for Labor in all of their CALD seats in Northern Melbourne and Western Sydney will be nothing but catastrophic next year as Muslim/Middle Eastern voters form a large part of Labor’s voting base.
@Daniel T I respectfully disagree. Given she’s led the Greens on a state level she’d have a fairly high profile and last time she contested the seat she made the seat marginal for the first time in decades. If the redistribution goes ahead as planned it will only add to the Greens base in Brunswick, Fitzroy and others, a majority of those places where the population has a habit of speaking before they think on issues like Palestine amongst others and could win purely based off this sort of manical, populist thinking.
Labor do seem acutely aware of the optics of the Fatima Payman floor crossing and Richard Marles statement today is a diplomatic approach to the issue that does fan any more outrage. There are a few scenarios going forward:
– Fatima Payman has made her point and from now on in will sit quietly up the back.
– She will be emboldened and keep going possibly until the situation becomes untenable – the Lydia Thorpe approach.
– It will embolden other Labor MPs to cross the floor on issues. “Fatima Payman got away with it so why can’t I?
Inevitably in a Labor Party where memories are long she will be either dropped to an unwinnable spot in 2028 or disendorsed when the time comes around.
sorry … “does NOT fan ..”
Samantha Ratnam definitely has a local profile in the area and has a good chance of winning. As state leader however she has had little or no cut through on the wider political stage. Bandt and MCM have no threat from her being a leadership contender. I am not sure why the Victorian Greens can never find a leader who has any presence or cut through.
“Presence and cut through” seems to be dictated by either high energy (like Chandler-Mather) or media attention. Unfortunately for any Greens politician who isn’t high energy, the likelihood of getting media attention is low in such a concentrated media landscape.
@ Tommo9
I did see Richard Marles statement on Fatima Payman after i posted this.. As mentioned, in the Macnamara thread i have friends in both communities so i am not saying if what Fatima Payman did do was morally right or wrong. However, i know it will be received differently in different demographics. For example the attacks on Fatima Payman among the Libs will hurt them in the seat of Bruce/Holt where there is a growing Afghan community and also Werriwa where there is a large Muslim community. This is especially interesting when the Libs wanted to abandon the affluent for working class outer suburbs. However, there are lot more Muslims in those areas than Teal seats.
@Nimalan Middle Eastern/Muslim voters have always been more entrenched as part of Labor’s voting base so Labor has to be very careful treading waters on this, because if they expel her for this then there’s guaranteed to be backlash and too many seats to count that would all be at risk (Not just Wills, but also Cooper, Calwell, Scullin, Chifley, Greenway, Werriwa, McMahon, Parramatta, Watson, Blaxland, Macarthur, Cowan, Oxley, Rankin), and they won’t even be guaranteed to sandbag Macnamara successfully in trying to appease the Jewish voters east of Chapel Street. In short it’s an electoral risk they just cannot afford, particularly in alienating their loyal voting base. It’s political suicide.
Yes Payman crossed the floor but the government was going to move an amendment to the motion which suggests to me that the government technically supported this motion and she was following the party lines, just not the amendment as it was voted down.
*Also adding to that Bruce, Holt, Isaacs, Hawke, Gorton. Too many to name.
@ Tommo9
Cooper is only 4.2% Muslim and Labor has support south of Bell Street as well, Issacs, Oxley is also less than 5%. I dont think in those 3 seats, the Muslim vote will be enough to impact. Full list can be found on the link below. Some right wing Liberals prior to October 7 used to believe they can win Muslim votes by focusing on social conservativism such as Trans issue especially since they dont want the Teal seats back. They was also a feeling the Geopolitics has shifted from the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific. However, the Middle east is a volatile region and something can always go wrong.
Full list of electorates by Muslim%
https://www.muslimvotesmatter.com.au/electorates
@ Nether Portal
From WA Senate thread
I am not sure that Muslims will not vote Greens/Socialists just due to their stance on LGBT issues.
@Nimalan not just LGBT but also critical race theory, etc. I just can’t imagine it happening.
@ Nether Portal
Just like Wilson stated in the WA Senate thread about abortion. i dont know how Critical Race theory is relevant to Muslims as hardly any of them identify as White (with possible exceptions of Bosnians & Albanians). If you listen to Palestinian activists such as Randa Abdel-Fattah or Nasser Mashni they have often argued that both Australia and Israel are settler colonial states and draw comparisons with the indigenous cause. You will see Aboriginal Flags at Pro-Palestine rallies but not Australian flags.
@Nimalan while that is true it’s just hard for me to understand why a Muslim who opposes the Greens’ social agenda would support the Greens simply due to a conflict that’s not really any of our business as Australians. (Though in saying that I’m a bit autistic so I don’t understand a lot of things.)
I do agree that some Invasion Day protesters are also pro-Palestinian protesters so critical race theory is probably the wrong example. However I have no idea what the Greens policy on LGBT education is called, but basically the stuff right-wingers call “woke grooming” but I just call “woke” since nothing can be compared to paedophilia or paedophiles (perhaps the worst people in the world along with terrorists).
Nether Portal, where is the evidence for this general consensus of Australian and British Muslims being more conservative than American Muslims that you claimed in the WA Senate thread? I have not heard of this consensus reported anywhere.
@Wilson:
Most Australian Muslims are against same-sex marriage and some even believe that homosexuality is a sin that is unacceptable. Source: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-08-31/same-sex-marriage-why-have-muslims-been-so-quiet-in-debate/8860486
Many high-ranking sheiks and imams are also homophobic. Malcolm Turnbull even regretted inviting Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman to an Iftar dinner at Kirribilli House in 2016. Former Australian Grand Mufti Ibrahim Abu Mohamed defended Alsuleiman saying that homosexuality is a sin, and Hizb ut-Tahrir (an Islamic extremist organisation that has an Australian branch) declares that homosexuality is a sin and a disease. Some Muslims even believe that homosexuality is a disease, though this is a minority view that is held by Islamists not normal Muslims.
As to why a Muslim who opposes the Greens’ social policies would support the Greens due to Palestine, it’s entirely possible that Palestine means more to them than any social policy. Many of them would strongly disagree with the idea that the conflict is none of our business as Australians, just as many people would strongly disagree with the idea that the Holocaust was none of our business as Australians.
While there’s obviously a diversity of opinions and priorities among Muslim Australians, I’m sure there are many who don’t consider social policy to be the most important factor when voting. After all, it’s not like same-sex marriage is going to be overturned, and neither major party is campaigning on that, so you’d think people would realise after a decade that political opposition is futile.
Nether Portal, that’s good to know, but it doesn’t prove that there’s a general consensus of Australian and British Muslims being more conservative than American Muslims, which was your claim. Can you substantiate that? There are also Muslim clerics in the United States who believe homosexuality is a sin.
Muslims in Northern Melbourne that can’t Labor (due to vague Middle Eastern stance) or the Greens (due to Social Policy) might plan to vote for Victorian Socialist as they already have a high voting number plus they focus and campaign much more on Palestine and economic issues rather than their own socially progressive views.
@Wilson, Muslims in USA tend to be more secular, educated and wealthier although they still mostly support Palestine hence there are fears Biden might lose Michigan (by extension probably the election) to Trump since it has the highest percentage of Arabs.
Marh, I didn’t think the Greens would be campaigning on social policy in a place like Wills. Is that the situation on the ground? If not, then I think the VS effect may not be as high as in the last state election, as they don’t have the volunteer power or the media traction that the Greens do.
The victorian socialists will preference Greens over Labor though
@Nimalan further to your point about the perception that prior to October 7 geopolitics shifting from the Middle East to the Indo Pacific/China, support for AUKUS might have been higher among Muslim communities due to general heightened anti-PRC sentiment at the time. Ironically, the shift in focus to the Gaza means the Libs’ rhetoric on China have moderated to the point that Dutton has declared himself “Pro-China”, giving the Libs a potential opportunity for a comeback among the middle ring Chinese seats that they lost or nearly lost. Dutton has pretty much given up on the teal seats which means the only way back for the Libs to even a minority government is to sweep the white working class and lower middle class outer suburban seats along with seats like Bennelong, Tangney and Chisholm (which the redistribution has given the Libs a chance again).
@ Dan M
If there was anti-PRC sentiment among the Muslim community in Australia it would only be due to the Uyghur issue not due to issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong etc which are not as relevant or of an interest to Muslims. However, the Uyghur issue does not get much coverage in the Muslim world and pretty much no Muslim country has actually criticized China on that matter. We dont really massive pro-uyghur demonstrations in either the Muslim world or in diaspora. It is actually Western countries that speak on that issue. Ironically, Michael Danby speaks up on that issue but i dont think that has won him many fans in the Muslim community. See article below, in the Muslim Countries of South East Asia there is actually a preference for China over the US.
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2024/4/4/majority-in-southeast-asia-would-choose-china-over-us-survey-suggests
@Dan M, looking at the massive swings against Libs in Chinese heavy polling booths in 2022 that might be due to a mix of correction votes (Libs made lots of inroads in the Chinese community in 2010s), disapproval of Scott Morrison China Policy in normally Chinese Lib votes and more 1.5 to 2nd generation registered to vote as most were born after 2000.